Wash. Times dust-up?

Those of us who grew up in Boston have two favorite sports: baseball and politics.

 

I'm from Chicago, where baseball and politics have a similar history to that of Boston.

 

But it is interesting to see how newsrooms are made of glass. Take this story and the Stephen A. Smith saga and it begs the question, how can newspapers take on other interests that are behaving badly when they can't even manage their own affairs properly?

 

Answer: Because if they don't, who will?

 

But doesn't a newspaper's credibility and reputation for fairness take a hit when you see stories like this? Like Mrs. Obama said, if you can't take of your own house, why should people expect you to be able to take care of the White House.

 

You could use the same logic and say, "Let's shut down Congress because a Senator got caught with a call girl." Why, after all, should we obey the laws those clowns pass? Total anarchy makes much more sense.

This is what's known as overreacting -- not to mention being self-righteous. You can take the one-bad-apple-spoils-the-bunch attitude, but it rarely if ever does.

 

Hell I'm not saying the one bad apple, blah, blah, blah. But I do think news orgs should hold themselves to the same standard they are holding others to.

 

Janet Cooke lost her job, if memory serves. So did Mike Barnicle, Patricia Smith and Jayson Blair. Judith Miller got pretty much driven out. There's plenty of policing going on.
This knee-jerk, off-with-their-heads mentality bothers me. Come on DO, let TV and radio peddle the hysteria. Print is supposed to be better than that -- and it usually is.

 

I'm not talking about how reporters are policed. I'm aiming higher up the food chain.

 

McCain's a white supremacist jackass.
No argument is possible otherwise.

 

Some would say Barnicle and Miller were pretty far up the "food chain." How about Gerald Boyd and Howell Raines, who got forced out over the Blair Disaster. High enough up on the "food chain" for ya -- or did you have a Sulzberger in mind?

 

The Boyd and Raines resignations were fine. I don't think you can have too much accountability.